Decades after furious locals shut down production at a vast mine in Papua New
Guinea, hopes are rising that the billions of dollars of gold within can
soon be accessed.

It was the mine blamed for sparking a civil war in Papua New Guinea, before it was left to rot with billions of dollars worth of gold and copper still untapped.

But now, a quarter of a century since workers at the vast Panguna mine were chased off in an uprising, mining giant Rio Tinto is eyeing the riches within.

Bougainville Copper, the mine’s owner in which Rio Tinto has a majority stake, has released a study which found it contains more than 5m tonnes of copper and 19m ounces of gold, worth $41bn (£26bn) and $32bn at current prices. That is much more metal than previously thought obtainable.

Peter Taylor, managing director of Boungainville Copper, said the company “continues to work with stakeholders on exploring ways in which the project may be advanced.”

If the mine does reopen, it would mark a turning point in its bloody history. Once the largest open-cast copper mine in the world, the wealth and environmental damage stemming from the site is said to have exacerbated tensions on Bougainville, the island province.

In 1989, production ceased after local farmers, armed with bows and arrows, home-made shotguns and bombs left over from the Second World War, succeeded in closing the mine, inflicting huge damage on the local economy.

As the violence escalated, the government panicked about the loss of revenue and sent in the national defence force.

The rebellion mushroomed into full-scale civil war which lasted 10 years and cost an estimated 15,000 lives, mostly from disease and starvation, before it ended in a ceasefire in 1998.

The current government of Papua New Guinea, which has a stake in Panguna, is keen to see it reopen, but exploration or mining has yet to resume at the site.